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Video: ‘Bismillah, Allāhu Akbar’ – Mercy Halal Islamic Slaughter

Given the context of the recent hate campaign against Muslims in Sri Lanka over Halal and cattle slaughtering, we have republished the presentation below with the permission of the Mercy Slaughter LLC, as it resurfaces some interesting points of view.

Certain parts of this presentation may be inappropriate for younger viewers or may be upsetting or offensive to some viewers based on their particular views on or sensitivity to the slaughtering of animals for food purposes.

“This presentation is intended to give guidance and support to persons who are engaged in the preparation, sale, and consumption of halal meat. Mercy Slaughter LLC has been diligent in its efforts to make the content of this presentation accurate. The philosophy and opinions expressed herein are those of Mercy Slaughter LLC and do not necessarily reflect the philosophy and opinions of all persons engaged in the halal meat industry.” says the Mercy Slaughter LLC.

“This presentation is intended to be educational and thought provoking. Mercy Slaughter LLC’s goal is to motivate the viewer to examine and review the teachings and other authoritative materials on which the viewer’s opinions, practices, and procedures regarding halal meat are based and, where appropriate, to implement changes to his opinions, practices, or procedures.” they further say.

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‘Dhabiha’ meat to be exact or what is commonly called ‘Halal Meat’ these days, is the meat derived after slaughtering the animal in accordance with Islamic way. Halal and Dhabiha are two different things for example; a pig even if cut in dhabiha way is still not halal and a halal animal can be dhabiha or non-dhabiha, but this is not the topic we are going to discuss here. So, the meat has to be of a halal animal and preferably dhabiha, unless there is no possibility.

In Islamic way of slaughtering (dhabiha), the animal’s main arteries in the neck are cut swiftly with a sharp knife, without cutting the spinal cord and the animal is left to die, while the heart pumps out almost all the blood from the body. Muslims are very particular about the Halal meat and if they cannot find it, they usually eat eggs or fish for protein source, but don’t eat non-dhabiha meat. Strangely enough; even the Muslims who do not respect the Islamic restrictions regarding prohibition of alcohol or other moral codes, hardly ever go for non-dhabiha meat. When asked about this phenomenon, they say;”it’s a sin without the pleasure”.

Technically; Muslims are allowed to eat the food of the ‘people of the book’, but not the infidels. Quran calls Jews and Christians as ‘the people of the book’. Muslims also take the name of God while cutting the animal, which infect they do before everything, from drinking water to bungee jumping. This is the reason why ‘Kosher’ meat is allowed to Muslims, as the Jews also follow pretty much the same protocol. The Orthodox Christians also take the name of God while cutting the animal, but they usually don’t follow the specific method of cutting the animal, explained in Islam. Here one thing should be kept in mind that, out of the popular meat sources like; sheep, goat, lamb, cow, buffalo, camel, turkey and chicken etc., the Pig meat (pork) is not allowed to Muslims. It is interesting that even the Jews don’t eat pork and the Kosher laws are very much similar to the Halal Laws in Islam.

Animal Aspect–Humane Way of Slaughtering the Animal

The animal welfare and protection groups have always had problems with religious slaughter of both Muslims and Jews, called the Halal and Kosher respectively. They thought that science tells that the Captive bolt Stunning method, which apparently takes less time for the animal to die– is more painless for the animal. Furthermore; they also had problems accepting a procedure of cutting animals– in accordance with thousands of year old religious methodology. Religion was considered as obsolete and religious slaughter was banned in many European countries after the World War II, as the scientific revolution rolled on.

After World War II, most Governments in Europe decided to ban the ancient religious method of animal slaughter and replaced it with captive bolt stunning, which they thought was more scientific and humane to animals. But religious sectors of both Jews and Muslims continued with their struggle to make it legal again. It took decades before techniques to monitor the pain during slaughter were developed, to finally prove it either way. The findings of such experiments surprisingly came out to be exactly opposite, to what was widely believed at that time. Following researches clearly show that the Source which created the Abrahimic religions, was more knowledgeable than the Scientists or animal welfare societies opposed to religious slaughter.

In 1978, a study incorporating EEG (electroencephalograph) with electrodes surgically implanted on the skull of 17 sheep and 15 calves, and conducted by Wilhelm Schulze et al. at the University of Veterinary Medicine in Germany concluded that “the slaughter in the form of a ritual cut is, if carried out properly, painless in sheep and calves according to EEG recordings and the missing defensive actions” (of the animals) and that “For sheep, there were in part severe reactions both in bloodletting cut and the pain stimuli” when captive bolt stunning (CBS) was used. This study is cited by the German Constitutional Court in its permitting of ‘Dhabiha slaughtering’.

Similarly; in April 2008,the French Ministry of Food, Agriculture and Fishing has published ASIDCOM’s Bibliographical Report on Religious Slaughter and the Welfare of Animals, as a contribution within the framework of a meeting on animals and society organized in 2008. This report quotes scientific papers and French veterinary PhD which support the equality or even possible superiority of religious slaughter to other methods of slaughter.

This report quotes in particular the Ph.D work of Dr Pouillaude which concludes by:”religious slaughter would thus be a less stressing mode of slaughter. Conclusions of all the scientific experiments converge towards a firmly supported certainty: properly carried out, religious slaughter is the most humane way because it leads to less trauma to animals to be killed to be consumed for its meat”.—- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halal

Human Aspect– Healthier Meat

Enough has already been written on religious slaughter with respect to being humane way of killing an animal to consume its meat; hopefully that would be enough to satisfy the animal welfare societies. But very little is written on the benefits of Dhabiha meat’s health benefits.

We all know that in case of Dhabiha meat, the animal’s spinal cord is left intact with main arteries in the neck cut, and the heart keeps beating to pump out almost all the blood from the body. Blood is not only prohibited in Islam but also carries all the viruses and bacteria—not to mention the toxins. Therefore; the Dhabiha meat is even more hygienic. We know that blood transfusion is a definite cause of transfer of diseases from one person to another.

But that is not all; the red meat is proven to be harmful to human health in numerous medical conditions. For this reason fish and chicken have become more popular these days. Dhabiha meat is always of light color due to the fact that it allows the animal to drain out most part of blood, even from the very tiny veins present inside the meat– contributing to the red pigmentation. That makes Dhabiha meat even less injurious to health, than the meat of same animal cut by captive bolt stunning (CBS) which includes; Electrical stunning, Gas stunning and Percussive stunning– widely used today. Even the Halal/Dhabiha meat has more ‘shelf-life’ for the reason explained above.

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